Exclusive | Billionaires Back a New ‘Anti-Woke’ University - WSJ. 1/2
Oct. 13, 2024 5:30 am
The University of Austin is housed in a former department store about a half-mile south of the Texas state Capitol.
Billionaires frustrated with elite colleges are banding behind a fledgling school in Texas that boasts 92 students.
Trader Jeff Yass, real-estate developer Harlan Crow and investor Len Blavatnik are among the high-profile people donating to the University of Austin, or UATX.The new school has raised roughly $200 million so far—including $35 million from Yass—a huge sum for a tiny school without any alumni to tap.
Crow, a major GOP donor, was an early backer.“Much of higher ed today seems to want to reject Western accomplishments and the accomplishments of Western civilizations in their entirety,”he said. “Many people think that’s a bad idea.” Crow said he expects UATX to encourage ideological diversity.
Crow and his wife, Kathy, have hosted several events for the school at their Dallas home and let the school use space in an office park he owns for its summer program, provocatively called Forbidden Courses. Crow has been a controversial benefactor to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He has said he has never discussed pending cases with Thomas.
Frustration with the state of debate and levels of unrest at prestigious universities has spurred some of the richest Americans to flex their financial muscle.
Billionaires like Marc Rowan and Bill Ackman led campaigns to oust Ivy League presidents they viewed as being too soft on antisemitism on campus following Hamas’s Oct. 7attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza. Many wealthy donors believe elite colleges are overwhelmingly progressive—and are attracted to the idea of an alternative school that says it encourages meritocratic achievement and myriad viewpoints.
Enter UATX, which welcomed its initial class of first-years last month in a former department storenear the Texas Capitol. The school says it is nonpartisan and refers to its mission as the “fearless pursuit of truth.” Its foundational curriculum marries classical texts—students were given a copy of Homer’s Odyssey upon enrollment—with an emphasis on entrepreneurship.
A video posted to the school’s YouTube page contrasts scenes of pro-Palestinian protests and encampments at other schools with a civil UATX seminar. The video ends with the message, “They burn, we build.”
Officials talk about UATX in lofty terms. Some cite the University of Chicago as an aspirational role model. President Pano Kanelos called students and faculty “pioneers” and “heroes” in his convocation address. “What is truly historic is that which sends the trajectory of history, and lives lived within the stream of history, shooting in a direction other than that towards which they were tending,” Kanelos said.
The effort to launch the school was announced in fall 2021.Founders include venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, a conservative who is donating to Donald Trump, and journalist Bari Weiss, who has described her news startup, the Free Press, as a check to mainstream media’s liberal orthodoxy.
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